Animal Kingdom

I think most of us agreed that Wednesday was our favorite day. We had several people tell us that Animal Kingdom wasn't that great, more like a glorified zoo....but that's not what we think. We found the smaller kids area and had a blast. Goober got to ride really neat rides and roller coasters several times with all the adults. It wasn't packed, there was lots of shade and when we did see an animal (mostly on the safari) we were pleased with how close we were. I kinda wish we would have scheduled another day there since it was so less....hmm..magic kindgomish.

We had promised the kiddos that they could get face paint today since we knew we could get it done first thing and make it last most of the day since it was quite expensive...

Of course we had to stop and see Daisy and Donald first though. Those pictures are with my Memory Maker album, which I will post later. But here is Daisy following us out :)

We also of course had to stop and trade pins along the way. Animal Kingdom, by far, had the most workers wearing and trading pins. They were all very friendly and this became Goob's favorite thing to do...he got several great ones and eventually the two littles joined in and started trading too. I'm not sure if I have mentioned this yet or not but we bought about 50 pins for about $20 on amazon. We let the kids pick their favorites and attached them to lanyards. Disney workers do the same thing and THEY HAVE TO trade with you regardless. So Goober traded 15 cent pins for $4.00 pins and also vice versa :). We even were able to score the whole set of the Winnie the Pooh black and white pins....AWESOME! This is a great activity for kiddos 5 and up...they loved looking through all their pins and we are going to display them in their rooms as a souvenir!

Off to get faces painted...
Our little beauty chose the Kitty Kat princess face..not surprising at all!

Baby Boy chose a superhero....no surprises here either. He actually got his face painted twice since in less then 10 minutes he had smeared the whole thing...the workers graciously re did it!!!

Momma with the two littles in line to ride the triceratops.

Daddy and princess on triceratops...I think we rode this ride at least 10 times that day.

At first he thought he was too big to get his face painted but then he saw how cool his siblings looked and we had to go back and get this OH SO SCARY face painted on....he loved it!!!

Waiting in line for a Bugs Life....definitely worth seeing....our kiddos loved it...don't use a fast pass though...its a large theater so even though you may wait 20 minutes almost everyone in line gets in on the next one!

On the Kilimanjaro Safari....definitely worth the fast pass on a hot day! One of the best rides there!

Captain held a sleeping Baby Boy on the whole safari...thats not blood on his neck, that is most of Baby Boy's face paint and drool ;)

This is not zoomed in or cropped...we were that close!

This ostrich held up the whole ride for about 10 solid minutes. It wouldn't get away from our truck and the driver couldn't do anything about it. She called for a ranger but there were several trucks backed up behind us before the ostrich got far away enough for us to continue.

Pointing to Everest, another favorite ride of Goobers...well worth the fast pass!

Check out that posing in front of the Tree of Life

Meeting Mickey and Minnie...we have more posed pictures on our Memory Maker

Stretch those wings!!!

Lolly and Baby Boy on the triceratops

Me with the big man...the face paint started to sweat off by late afternoon!

More dancing for Mrs. Thang....she was following all of their moves!

This was also souvenir day....that felt like they had seen everything and were ready to pick out their one souvenir :)
Sister holding her stuffed Stitch and Leroy doll....she renamed Leroy "Disney" :)

We were seated to Finding Nemo the musical...ITS FANTASTIC...don't use a fast pass, everyone gets in...we used Fast Pass and ended up getting awesome seats where the characters interacted with us but I wouldn't do it again.
Goob chose a purple light saber....DUH

Check out those eyebrows....the face paint sweated off everywhere but there :). He chose a ray gun!

I'll post pictures later of our character dinner at 1900 Park Fare on another post since I have a lot of pictures from that night.

I think we also enjoyed the food at Animal Kingdom too...we had mandarin lemonade which was fantastic! We ate BBQ for lunch and everyone had a hard time finishing their meals since it came with gelato and huge portions or BBQ'd chicken, ribs or turkey. We had lots of shade there and the characters we stood in line for only had a 5-10 minute wait. Like I said, it was our favorite day there by far!!!

In summer news, I have moved 3 tons of dirt..thats right! I am going to lay the flagstone for the patio tomorrow....had to lay 2 to 3 inches of dirt with small pebbles underneath though for drainage. I am making this my summer project to help shed more weight along with the cleanse I am doing. I think I have lost anywhere from 6-9 lbs..our scale is super weird though and depending on which tile its on in the bathroom I can gain or lose 10 lbs in 15 minutes. My clothes are fitting really well and I'm noticing less flab :). I haven't had soda/ coffee/ dessert/ white flour....really anything processed or any big portions of dairy in over 2 weeks now and I feel great. I have yet to feel bloated and/or ugly full..you know so full that you are uncomfortable...and I HAVE ATE tons of veggies/ fruits and lean proteins! I love the meal shakes and have already re-ordered those for my breakfast from now on. The kids are doing great on the cleanse and we now have lots of "Jesus" dinners...fish and veggies...or just veggies with homemade hummus :). They all love boiled eggs too so we are going through a carton every couple of days!
We've also been to dentist/ dermatologist and podiatrist and everyone is doing great :).